Showing papers on "Social movement published in 1996"

Comparative perspectives on social movements : political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and cultural framings

Abstract: Introduction: opportunities mobilizing structures and framing processes Doug McAdam Part I. Political Opportunities: 1. Clarifying the concept of political opportunities Doug McAdam 2. States and opportunities: the political structuring of social movements Sidney Tarrow 3. Social movements and the state: thoughts on the policing of protest Donatella della Porta 4. Opportunities and framing in the East European revolts of 1989 Anthony Oberschall 5. Opportunities and Framing in the Political Cycle of Perestroika Elena Zdravomyslova Part II. Mobilizing Structures: 6. Mobilizing structures: constraints and opportunities in adopting, adapting and inventing John D. McCarthy 7. The organizational structure of new social movements in relation to their political context Hanspeter Kriesi 8. The impact of national contexts on social movement structures: a cross-movement and cross-national comparison Dieter Rucht 9. Organizational form as frame: collective identity and political strategy in the American Labor Movement 1880-1920 Elisabeth S. Clemens 10. The collapse of a social movement: the interplay of mobilizing structures, framing, and political opportunities in the Knights of Labor Kim Voss Part III. Framing Processes: 11. Culture ideology and strategic framing Mayer N. Zald 12. Accessing public media electoral and governmental agendas John D. McCarthy, Jackie Smith, and Mayer N. Zald 13. Media discourse, movement publicity, and the generation of collective action frames: theoretical and empirical exercises in meaning construction Bert Klandermans and Sjoerd Goslinga 14. Framing political opportunity William A. Gamson and David S. Meyer 15. The framing function of movement tactics: strategic dramaturgy in the American civil rights movement Doug McAdam.

Challenging codes : collective action in the information age

Abstract: Introduction Part I. Theory of Collective Action: 1. The construction of collective action 2. Conflict and change 3. Action and meaning 4. The process of collective identity Part II. Contemporary Collective Action: 5. conflicts of culture 6. Invention of the present 7. The time of difference 8. Roots for today and for tomorrow 9. A search for ethics 10. Information, power, domination Part III. The Field of Collective Action: 11. A society without a centre 12. The political system 13. The state and the distribution of social resources 14. Modernization, crisis, and conflict: the case of Italy Part IV. Acting Collectively: 15. Mobilization and political participation 16. The organization of movements 17. Leadership in social movements 18. Collective action and discourse 19. Forms of action 20. Research on collective action.

Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge

Abstract: In the short, turbulent history of AIDS research and treatment, the boundaries between scientist insiders and lay outsiders have been crisscrossed to a degree never before seen in medical history. Steven Epstein's astute and readable investigation focuses on the critical question of 'how certainty is constructed or deconstructed', leading us through the views of medical researchers, activists, policy makers, and others to discover how knowledge about AIDS emerges out of what he calls 'credibility struggles'. Epstein shows the extent to which AIDS research has been a social and political phenomenon and how the AIDS movement has transformed biomedical research practices through its capacity to garner credibility by novel strategies. Epstein finds that non scientist AIDS activists have gained enough of a voice in the scientific world to shape NIH-sponsored research to a remarkable extent. Because of the blurring of roles and responsibilities, the production of biomedical knowledge about AIDS does not, he says, follow the pathways common to science; indeed, AIDS research can only be understood as a field that is unusually broad, public, and contested. He concludes by analyzing recent moves to democratize biomedicine, arguing that although AIDS activists have set the stage for new challenges to scientific authority, all social movements that seek to democratize expertise face unusual difficulties. Avoiding polemics and accusations, Epstein provides a benchmark account of the AIDS epidemic to date, one that will be as useful to activists, policy makers, and general readers as to sociologists, physicians, and scientists.

Democracy and difference : contesting the boundaries of the political

Abstract: Introduction: The Democratic Moment and the Problem of Difference3Pt. 1Democratic Theory: Foundations and Perspectives191Three Normative Models of Democracy212Fugitive Democracy313Using Power/Fighting Power: The Polity464Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy675Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy956Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy120Pt. 2Equality, Difference, and Public Representation1377Dealing with Difference: A Politics of Ideas, or a Politics of Presence?1398Three Forms of Group-Differentiated Citizenship in Canada1539Diversity and Democracy: Representing Differences17110Democracy, Difference, and the Right of Privacy18711Gender Equity and the Welfare State: A Postindustrial Thought Experiment218Pt. 3Culture, Identity, and Democracy24312Democracy, Power, and the "Political"24513Difference, Dilemmas, and the Politics of Home25714Democracy and Multiculturalism27815The Performance of Citizenship: Democracy, Gender, and Difference in the French Revolution29516Peripheral Peoples and Narrative Identities: Arendtian Reflections on Late Modernity314Pt. 4Does Democracy Need Foundations?33117Idealizations, Foundations, and Social Practices33318Democratic Theory and Democratic Experience33619Democracy, Philosophy, and Justification34020Foundationalism and Democracy348List of Contributors361Index365

Movements, Countermovements, and the Structure of Political Opportunity

Abstract: Movement-countermovement interaction is an ongoing feature of contemporary social movements and, indeed, of contemporary politics. Yet the interplay of contending movements is understudied and undertheorized. This article begins to remedy this deficit by arguing that new work on political opportunity structure provides important insights and significant theoretical leverage for this study. Through a review of the literatures on countermovements and political opportunity, this article argues that this interaction increases when states enable but do not satisfy challengers. This article presents a general framework of theoretical propositions for understanding the interplay of movements and their opponents to animate and guide subsequent research.

Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Framing political opportunity

Abstract: The concept of political opportunity structure is in trouble, in danger of becoming a sponge that soaks up virtually every aspect of the social movement environment – political institutions and culture, crises of various sorts, political alliances, and policy shifts. As Tarrow notes (1988: 430), “Political opportunity may be discerned along so many directions and in so many ways that it is less a variable than a cluster of variables – some more readily observable than others.” It threatens to become an all-encompassing fudge factor for all the conditions and circumstances that form the context for collective action. Used to explain so much, it may ultimately explain nothing at all. Part of the problem is that analysts use political opportunity structure to serve a wide variety of functions, and define it accordingly. Scholars who want to explain the emergence and influence of a movement over time use it as a set of independent variables , to describe dynamic aspects of the political environment that change to allow or encourage the emergence of challengers (e.g., Jenkins and Perrow 1977; McAdam 1982; Meyer 1990, 1993a). Others who want to compare the development of similar movements in different nations, states, or cities use political opportunity structure as a holder for intervening variables such as institutional structures or rules of representation (e.g., Amenta and Zylan 1991; Eisinger 1973; Kitschelt 1986; Tilly 1978).

Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Introduction: Opportunities, mobilizing structures, and framing processes – toward a synthetic, comparative perspective on social movements

Abstract: In a widely read book published in 1960, the sociologist Daniel Bell proclaimed the “end of ideology.” As the 1960s dawned, a good many social scientists believed we had reached a stage in the development of society where ideological conflict would gradually be replaced by a more pluralistic, pragmatic consensus. Bell and his colleagues could not have been more mistaken. In the very year Bell's book was published, black students staged sit-in demonstrations throughout the American South. In turn the sit-ins revitalized both a moribund civil rights movement and the tradition of leftist activism dormant in America since the 1930s. During the ensuing decade the country was rent by urban riots, massive antiwar demonstrations, student strikes, and political assassinations. On a global level, student movements proliferated: in France, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Spain, Japan, Pakistan, and numerous other countries. In Czechoslovakia, an effort to reform and “humanize the face of communism” was brutally suppressed by Soviet forces. In short, the 1960s witnessed a proliferation in the very kinds of social movements and revolutions that Bell had assumed were a thing of the past. The last twenty-five years have only served to underscore the poverty of Bell's argument. If anything, social movements and revolutions have, in recent decades, emerged as a common – if not always welcome – feature of the political landscape. In the 1970s Islamic fundamentalists wrest power from the Shah of Iran. The Sandinistas depose Somoza in Nicaragua. Terrorist groups in Germany and Italy step up their attacks on military installations, politicians, and symbols of “corporate hegemony.” The 1980s were witness to more of the same.

The Creativity of Action

Abstract: Based on Joas's study of George Herbert Mead, this work reevaluates the contribution of American pragmatism and European philosophical anthropology to theories of action in the social sciences. The author also attempts to establish direct ties between Mead's work and German philosophical anthropology. Joas argues for adding a third model of action to the two predominent models of rational and normative action - one which emphasizes the creative character of human action. This model encompasses the other two, allowing for a more comprehensive theory of action. Joas elaborates some implications of his model for theories of social movements and social change, and for the status of action theory in sociology in the face of competition from theories advanced by Luhmann and Habermas. The problem of action is of crucial importance in both sociology and philosophy, and this book aims to add impetus to current debate.

Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: States and opportunities: The political structuring of social movements

Abstract: In a 1991 article, John McCarthy, David Britt, and Mark Wolfson begin with an assertion that is often acknowledged in the social movement field but seldom receives the attention it deserves. They write: When people come together to pursue collective action in the context of the modern state they enter a complex and multifaceted social, political and economic environment. The elements of the environment have manifold direct and indirect consequences for people's common decisions about how to define their social change goals and how to organize and proceed in pursuing those goals. (1991: 46) Their observation reflects the findings of a loose archipelago of writings that has developed since the early 1970s around the theme of “political opportunity structure.” In his introduction to this part, Doug McAdam points out that, rather than focus on some supposedly universal cause of collective action, writers in this tradition examine political structures as incentives to the formation of social movements. But there are two major ways of specifying political structures in relation to collective action: as cross-sectional and static structures of opportunity and as intrasystemic and dynamic ones. This essay briefly discusses both but explores in much greater depth why – in my view – “dynamic” opportunities appear to impinge more directly on the decision-making of social movements and permit them to create their own opportunities. A TYPOLOGY OF OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURES As in any developing paradigm, there is a healthy and many-sided debate about how to conceptualize political opportunity structure. Some researchers have focused on large-scale structures, others on ones that are proximate to particular actors; some analyze cross-sectional variations in political opportunity, while others look at how changes in political conflict and alliances trigger, channel, and demobilize social movements.

The Search for Political Community: American Activists Reinventing Commitment

Abstract: This book challenges the myth that Americans' emphasis on personal fulfilment necessarily weakens commitment to the common good. Drawing on extensive participant-observation with a variety of environmentalist groups, Paul Lichterman argues that individualism sometimes enhances public, political commitment and that a shared respect for individual inspiration enables activists with diverse political backgrounds to work together. This personalised culture of commitment has sustained activists working long-term for social change. The book contrasts 'personalised politics' in mainly white environmental groups with a more traditional, community-centred culture of commitment in an African-American group. The untraditional, personalised politics of many recent social movements invites us to rethink common understandings of commitment, community, and individualism in a post-traditional world.

Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Culture, ideology, and strategic framing

Abstract: The recent focus on the strategic framing of injustice and grievances, their causes, motivations, and associated templates for collective action, has served to reemphasize the central importance of ideas and cultural elements in understanding the mobilization of participation in social movements and the framing of political opportunity. While conceiving of culture and framing as strategically produced represents a substantial break with past conceptions of ideas in movements, which tended to emphasize their embeddedness in community and as crescively emergent, still the notion of strategic framing is quite vague in terms of its constituent elements and general processes. This introduction to Part III focuses first on the larger evolution of the analysis of ideas and culture in academic scholarship and as it was entailed (or not) in the study of social movements. Recent decades have seen the emergence of modes of analysis of culture, of frames and scripts, of rhetoric and dramaturgy, and of cultural repertoires and tool kits that substantially enhance our ability to analyze the role of culture, ideology, and frames in social movements. The literature on culture and framing in social movements has been somewhat amorphous. I sketch six basic topics in the interplay of movements, framing, and the larger society. First, I discuss the cultural construction of repertoires of contention and frames . Second, since framing takes place in the context of larger societal processes, I discuss the contribution of cultural contradictions and historical events in providing opportunities for framing.

How to make a market : reflections on the attempt to create a single market in the European union

Abstract: Theories about institution-building episodes emphasize either rational or social and cultural elements. Our research on the Single Market Program (SMP) of the European Union (EU) shows that both elements are part of the process. When the EU was caught in a stalemate, the European Commision devised the SMP. The commission worked within the constraints of existing institutional arrangements, provided a "cultural frame," and helped create an elite social movement. This examination of the SMP legislation, using an institutional approach to the sociology of markets, shows how the commission was able to do this by trading off the interests of important state and corporate actors.

Narrating Crisis: The Discursive Construction of the `Winter of Discontent'

Abstract: The winter of discontent continues to exert a powerful hold over the British political imaginary. It acts as a discursive key to a collective mythology seemingly appealed to, and conjured, in each wave of industrial unrest, in each hint of political turmoil and, until recently, whenever the election of a Labour Government looked credible. In this paper I consider the rhetorical strategies and linguistic devices deployed by the tabloid media in the narration of the events of the winter of 1978-79. I argue for an interpretation of the winter of discontent as a moment of state crisis. By crisis however I do not refer to the mere accumulation of contradictions but rather to a moment of transition, a moment of decisive intervention. Within such a framework, the winter of discontent emerges as a strategic moment in the transformation of the British state, and perhaps the key moment in the pre-history of Thatcherism. For, as I hope to demonstrate, the initial appeal of the New Right was premised upon its ability to offer a convincing construction of the winter of discontent as symptomatic of a more fundamental crisis of the state. In such a moment of crisis, a particular type of decisive intervention was called for. In this discursive construction of crisis the New Right proved itself capable of changing, if not the hearts and minds of the electorate, then certainly the predominant perceptions of the political context. It recruited subjects to its vision of the necessary response to the crisis of a monolithic state besieged by the trade unions. This was perhaps the only truly hegemonic moment of Thatcherism. It occurred well before Mrs Thatcher entered Number 10. It is thus not surprising that one of the most enduring and distinctive legacies of Thatcherism has been the new political lexicon of crisis, siege and subterfuge born of the winter of discontent. Language: en

Mobilization at the margins: resources, benefactors, and the viability of homeless social movement organizations*

Abstract: For over two decades, resources have been assumed to be a fundamental determinant of the course and character of social movement organizations (SMOs) and their activities. Yet surprisingly little research evaluates this taken-for-granted assumption. Using data from ethnographic fieldwork on 15 homeless SMOs in eight U.S. cities, we construct an empirically grounded typology of resources and assess the combinations of resources necessary for the viability of homeless SMOs. We then examine the sources of support for these organizations, highlighting the influence of benefactor organizations on SMO viability and tactics. Employing qualitative comparative analysis, we identify three resource configurations among the viable SMOs and find that certain resource types contributed more than others to viability. Support from benefactors also ensured viability of these organizations without moderating their tactics. We explain the implications of these findings for understanding the roles that resources and sponsorship or patronage play in the careers of SMOs and the relevance of resources, sponsorship, and organization to social movements of the poor. early two decades after the flowering of the resource mobilization perspective on social movements, many of the perspective's assumptions have been "assimilated as the routine and unstated grounds of much contemporary work" (Zald 1992:327). One such taken-for-granted assumption is that resources are a sine qua non determinant of the course and character of social movement organizations (SMOs) and their activities. Indeed, no other assumption is so fundamental to the resource mobilization perspective and a plethora of derivative work. Yet there is little definitive understanding of several resource-related issues relevant to the dynamics of SMOs. One such issue concerns the conceptualization and identification of resources; a second issue addresses whether some types of resources are more important than others for mobilization and collective action; the third issue concerns resource derivation, particularly the relative importance of externally derived versus internally derived resources; and the fourth issue concerns the implications of external support for SMO viability and tactical actions. We address these four issues with data on 15 homeless SMOs in eight U.S. cities, and we explore the implications of our findings for a more nuanced understanding of social movements of the poor.

Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: The organizational structure of new social movements in a political context

Abstract: ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Organizational infrastructure of social movements Social movement organizations (SMOs) constitute crucial building blocks of the mobilizing structures of a social movement. But, as John McCarthy has pointed out in his introduction to Part II, they are by no means the only components of a movement's mobilizing structures. Other elements of these structures include kinship and friendship networks, informal networks among activists, movement communities, as well as a host of more formal organizations which contribute to the movement's cause without being directly engaged in the process of mobilization for collective action. In conceptualizing the more formal side of the mobilizing structure of a given movement, I would like to suggest that we distinguish between at least four types of formal organizations: SMOs, “supportive organizations,” “movement associations,” and “parties and interest groups.” SMOs are distinguished from the other types of formal organizations by two criteria: (1) they mobilize their constituency for collective action, and (2) they do so with a political goal, that is, to obtain some collective good (avoid some collective ill) from authorities. By contrast, supportive organizations are service organizations such as friendly media, churches, restaurants, print shops, or educational institutions, which contribute to the social organization of the constituency of a given movement without directly taking part in the mobilization for collective action.1 “Supportive organizations” may work on behalf of the movement, their personnel may sympathize with the movement, but their participation in the movement's mobilization for action is at best indirect or accidental.

Social movements and the changing structure of political opportunity in the European union 1

Abstract: To the extent that European integration results in the decline in the importance of the nation‐state as the exclusive seat of formal political power, we can expect attendant changes in those forms of interest aggregation and articulation historically linked to the state. This article suggests that a polity characterised by multi‐level governance is emerging in Europe and that this poses a set of new constraints and opportunities for groups that wish to influence political decisions. We argue that group strategy in response to this is a function of: (1) the structure of political opportunities facing a group in the EU; and (2) inherited institutions and ideologies that constrain the capacity of a group to exploit those opportunities. We use this framework to analyse the effect of European integration on four groups: the labour movement, regional movements, the environmental movement and the anti‐nuclear movement.

Pluralistic Ignorance and the Perpetuation of Social Norms by Unwitting Actors

Abstract: Publisher Summary Pluralistic ignorance begins with a discrepancy between public actions and private sentiments, typically produced by widespread behavioral adherence to a social norm. Pluralistic ignorance is a pervasive feature of social life and is found to characterize the dynamics of social situations, social groups, and social movements. Group identification is the root cause for many cases of pluralistic ignorance—that individuals often act out of a desire to be good group members but interpret others' similarly motivated behavior as reflecting personal beliefs and opinions. This chapter presents two cases of pluralistic ignorance: (1) concerning the attitudes of college students toward alcohol use on campus and (2) concerning the gender stereotypes held by elementary school children. Mean responses of students in percentage are graphically represented in the chapter. Pluralistic ignorance describes the case in which virtually every member of a group or society privately rejects a belief, opinion, or practice, yet believes that virtually every other member privately accepts it. The term “pluralistic ignorance” is something of a misnomer, for in these cases, group members are not, in fact, ignorant of one another's private sentiments; rather, they think they know, but are mistaken.

Political inclusion and the dynamics of democratization

Abstract: Once universal adult citizenship rights have been secured in a society, democratization is mostly a matter of the more authentic political inclusion of different groups and categories, for which formal political equality can hide continued exclusion or oppression. It is important, however, to distinguish between inclusion in the state and inclusion in the polity more generally. Democratic theorists who advocate a strategy of progressive inclusion of as many groups as possible in the state fail to recognize that the conditions for authentic as opposed to symbolic inclusion are quite demanding. History shows that benign inclusion in the state is possible only when (a) a group's defining concern can be assimilated to an established or emerging state imperative, and (b) civil society is not unduly depleted by the group's entry into the state. Absent such conditions, oppositional civil society may be a better focus for democratization than is the state. A flourishing oppositional sphere, and therefore the conditions for democratization itself, may actually be facilitated by a passively exclusive state, the main contemporary form of which is corporatism. Benign inclusion in the state can sometimes occur, but any such move should also produce exclusions that both facilitate future democratization and guard against any reversal of democratic commitment in state and society. These considerations have substantial implications for the strategic choices of social movements.

Integrating Gender: Women, Law and Politics in the European Union

Abstract: During 1996-97, the European Union's Intergovernmental Conference is reviewing the competence, institutional structure and working methods of the Union. This book seeks to make an intervention in the debate on these issues by highlighting the obstacles and opportunities for an effective policy on the rights of women at work. Since the 1970s, European Community legislation on conditions of employment has provided a rare example of European policy which grants social rights and engages, at least to some extent, with a mobilized political community. Analysis of policy implementation reveals the complex web which develops when national and transnational state activity interacts with social movements operating in different national and cultural contexts. In this book, Catherine Hoskyns tracks these developments across the EU member states using a wide range of primary sources, including original interviews with some of the key women involved at grassroots, professional and official levels.

African-American Women in the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965: Gender, Leadership, and Micromobilization

Abstract: Through an analysis of gender in the civil rights movement, this article illustrates that the conceptualization of social movement leadership requires expansion. This study concludes that an intermediate layer of leadership is critical to the micromobilization of a social movement. This intermediate layer provides a bridge (1) between the social movement organization(s) and potential adherents and constituents, (2) between prefigurative and strategic politics, and (3) between potential leaders and those already predisposed to movement activity. The latter illustrates that mobilization does not always occur in a linear fashion (i.e., formal leaders mobilize and recruit participants). In the case of the civil rights movement, this intermediate layer of leadership was the primary area for women's leadership.

Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: The framing function of movement tactics: Strategic dramaturgy in the American civil rights movement

Abstract: In his essay introducing Part III, Mayer Zald seeks to refine our understanding of the concept of“framing processes” by identifying five topics that have often been confounded or otherwise blurred in previous discussions of the concept. These five topics are (1) the cultural tool kits available to activists for framing purposes, (2) the strategic framing efforts of movement groups, (3) the frame contests that arise between the movement and other collective actors, (4) the role of the media in shaping these frame contests, and (5) the cultural impact of the movement in modifying the available“tool kit.” In this chapter I hope to advance our understanding of topics 2–4 in this list. Specifically, I aim to do four things: (1) review the existing work on“strategic framing efforts,” (2) critique what I see as the“ideational bias” in our understanding of framing processes, (3) discuss the framing function of movement tactics, and (4) conclude by using the concrete case of the American civil rights movement to illustrate the way in which tactics were consciously used to“frame” action and thereby attract media attention and shape public opinion in ways that led to a decisive victory in the movement's“frame contest” with federal officials and Southern segregationists. FRAMING AND FRAME ALIGNMENT PROCESSES Among the most provocative and potentially useful of the works on the cultural dimensions of social movements have been the writings of David Snow and various of his colleagues (Snow et al., 1986; Snow and Benford, 1988, 1992) on the role of“framing” or“frame alignment processes” in the emergence and development of collective action.

To Map Contentious Politics

Abstract: Different forms of contentious politics such as social movements, revolutions, ethnic mobilizations, and cycles of protest share a number of causal properties, but disciplinary fragmentation has obscured their similarities. Recent work and this new journal provide opportunities for comparison and synthesis. A network of researchers is undertaking a broad survey of contentious politics in hopes of producing an intelligible map of the field, a synthesis of recent inquiries, a specification of scope conditions for the validity of available theories, and an exploration of worldwide changes in the character of contention. Discussions of 1) social movements, cycles, and revolutions, 2) collective identities and social networks, 3) social movements and institutional politics, 4) globalization and transnational contention illustrate the promise and perils of the enterprise.

Explaining the rise of racist and extreme right violence in Western Europe: Grievances or opportunities?

Abstract: This paper investigates the causes of the recent rise in extreme right and racist violence in Western Europe. In the first part, the available data on extreme right and racist violence in eight Western European countries - Germany, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway - are discussed. Contrary to the image presented in the media, Germany is no 'Sonderfall’ as regards the level of violence. Germany belongs to the countries with the highest levels of violence, but Switzerland and Great Britain are roughly comparable in this regard. The second part of the paper attempts to explain cross-national differences by applying two theoretical perspectives from the social movement literature. The grievance model, which sees the causes of violence in grievances related to the main target groups of the extreme right (foreigners and asylum seekers) and more general feelings of anomie among the socially marginal, finds little support in the data. The opportunity model, which emphasizes the role of political elites in shaping mobilization opportunities for social movements, finds support in an analysis of the relation between the development of extreme right and racist violence and the political debate around asylum legislation in Germany. Moreover, cross-national comparison shows that the amount of violence also depends on the prior strength of extreme right and racist parties. Contrary to common wisdom, but in line with the expectations derived from the opportunity model, the level of violence tends to be low where extreme right and racist parties are strong and vice versa.

Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Constraints and opportunities in adopting, adapting, and inventing

Abstract: Scholars of social movements have come to a quite broad consensus about the importance of mobilizing structures for understanding the trajectory of particular social movements and broader social movement cycles. The choices that activists make about how to more or less formally pursue change have consequences for their ability to raise material resources and mobilize dissident efforts, as well as for society-wide legitimacy – all of which can directly affect the chances that their common efforts will succeed. But these same scholars have just begun to account for the comparative historical variation in those structures across societies, across movements, and through time. As they make progress in doing so, we will be better able to generate perspectives that account for how mobilizing structural forms emerge and evolve; how they are chosen, combined, and adapted by social movement activists; and how they differentially affect particular movements as well as movement cycle trajectories. The concepts of political opportunity and strategic framing are, I believe, particularly useful in illuminating these processes. By mobilizing structures I mean those agreed upon ways of engaging in collective action which include particular “tactical repertoires,” particular “social movement organizational” forms, and “modular social movement repertoires.” I also mean to include the range of everyday life micromobilization structural social locations that are not aimed primarily at movement mobilization, but where mobilization may be generated: these include family units, friendship networks, voluntary associations, work units, and elements of the state structure itself. The encompassing scope of the mobilizing structures concept usefully aggregates all of these many varieties of enabling institutional configurations, allowing us to address their routine dynamics as well as their common reciprocal interrelationships with both political opportunity structures and framing processes.

Democracy in capitalist times : ideals, limits, and struggles

Abstract: Democracy is under threat from a variety of forces originating in the transnational capitalist economy. Dryzek here outlines these forces, considers how democracy might be defended against them, and explores the prospects for deepening democracy. Democratic communication in civil society, social movements, and workplaces are the most likely places for revitalization of the democratic impulse. CONTENTS: 1. Is More Democracy Possible? 2. Why Capitalist Democracy Emerges Victorious. 3. Democracy versus the State. 4. Democracy versus the International System. 5. Democracy versus Economic Rationality. 6. Democracy versus Ideology. 7. The Outlook for Democracy. Bibliography Index

Resource Mobilization by Local Social Movement Organizations: Agency, Strategy, and Organization in the Movement Against Drinking and Driving

Abstract: Mobilization of resources is a central concern among analysts of social movements. However little research has focused on factors that influence the types and amounts of resources collective actors are able to mobilize. In this study, data from local social movement organizations opposing drinking and driving are used to assess the roles of agency (i.e., amount of effort), strategy, organizational structure, and nature of national affiliation in the mobilization of resources. Measures of agency consistently predict mobilization of volunteer labor revenue, and membership. Strategy seems less important. An emphasis on victim services was positively related only to mobilization of members. Organizational structure, particularly the number of task committees, was consistently related to mobilization of volunteer label; revenue, and membership. Affiliation with a highly visible and highly legitimated national organization, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), appears to have an energizing effect on local leaders while it dampens the effects of agency, strategy, and organizational structure. These results are interpreted within the distinctive political and cultural context of the movement against drinking and driving.

Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change, Second Edition

Abstract: 1 A Quick History of Modern Democracy 2 States, Social Movement Challengers, and Elite Reformers 3 Eighteenth-Century Revolution, Nineteenth-Century Eddies 4 Twentieth-Century Pendulum Swings 5 Semidemocracy, Pseudodemocracy, Democracy 6 Beyond the Great Democratic Wave 7 Into the Twenty-First Century: New Challenges, New Opportunities

Master Framing and Cross-Movement Networking in Contemporary Social Movements

Abstract: This article maps the network of cross-movement activism in Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, and explores the relationship between position in the network and cognitive use of different injusti...